HW Home	Previous CN	View CN	View TNM	View TNI	Next CN

Line 1768-9 - Commentary Note (CN)

Commentary notes (CN):

1. SMALL CAPS Indicate editions. Notes for each commentator are divided into three parts:

In the 1st two lines of a record, when the name of the source text (the siglum) is printed in SMALL CAPS, the comment comes from an EDITION; when it is in normal font, it is derived from a book, article, ms. record or other source. We occasionally use small caps for ms. sources and for works related to editions. See bibliographies for complete information (in process).

2. How comments are related to predecessors' comments. In the second line of a record, a label "without attribution" indicates that a prior writer made the same or a similar point; such similarities do not usually indicate plagiarism because many writers do not, as a practice, indicate the sources of their glosses. We provide the designation ("standard") to indicate a gloss in common use. We use ≈ for "equivalent to" and = for "exactly alike."

3. Original comment. When the second line is blank after the writer's siglum, we are signaling that we have not seen that writer's gloss prior to that date. We welcome correction on this point.

4. Words from the play under discussion (lemmata). In the third line or lines of a record, the lemmata after the TLN (Through Line Number] are from Q2. When the difference between Q2 and the authors' lemma(ta) is significant, we include the writer's lemma(ta). When the gloss is for a whole line or lines, only the line number(s) appear. Through Line Numbers are numbers straight through a play and include stage directions. Most modern editions still use the system of starting line numbers afresh for every scene and do not assign line numbers to stage directions.

5. Bibliographic information. In the third line of the record, where we record the gloss, we provide concise bibliographic information, expanded in the bibliographies, several of which are in process.

6. References to other lines or other works. For a writer's reference to a passage elsewhere in Ham. we provide, in brackets, Through Line Numbers (TLN) from the Norton F1 (used by permission); we call these xref, i.e., cross references. We call references to Shakespearean plays other than Ham. “parallels” (//) and indicate Riverside act, scene and line number as well as TLN. We call references to non-Shakespearean works “analogues.”

7. Further information: See the Introduction for explanations of other abbreviations. Click here for more information about browsing the entries and here for more information about the special symbols used in Hamletworks. Click the question mark icon above to remove this help message.

Notes for lines 1018-2022 ed. Eric Rasmussen

For explanation of sigla, such as jen, see the editions bib.

1768-9 late beautie into his likenes, \| this was sometime a paradox, but now the

1785 v1785

v1785

1768 Malone (ed. 1785): “All the old copies have his likeness. There is no need of change. Our author frequently uses his for its.”

1793 v1793

1768 Malone [ed. 1793)]: The modern editors read--its likeness; but the text is right. Shakspeare and his contemporaries frequently use the personal for the neutral pronoun. So Spenser, Faery Queen, Book III. ch.. ix: ‘The forth it breaks; and with his furious blast, Counfounds both land and seas, and skies doth overcast’ See p. 65, n. 6.”

1843- mlewes

mlewes

1766-70 I truly . . . proofe] Lewes (ms. notes in Knight, ed. 1843): “i.e. Beauty will become her undoing; this he did not credit once, but now his mother’s guilt is a proof of what before was a paradox.”

1882 elze

elze

1768 translate] Elze (ed. 1882): “an evident dittography. Compare A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, III, 1, 121 seq.: Blesse thee Bottome, blesse thee; thou art translated. B. Jonson, Every Man out of his Humour, II, 2 (Works, in 1 vol., p. 43b): Behold, behold, the translated gallant. Id., Bartholomew Fair, III, 1 (Works, p. 326b): It shall be hard for him to find or know us, when we are translated, Joan. In Dekker’s Honest Whore, Part II, III, 2 (Middleton, ed. Dyce, III, 178) ‘to translate’ is used in the sense of ‘to pawn’: his doublet was going to be translated, but for me. According to Peacock’s Glossary of Words used in Manley and Corringham (London, 1877) ‘to translate’ means ‘to change; usually applied to transforming one kind of garment into another’.”

1899 ard1

ard1

1768-9Dowden (ed. 1899): “I loved you once--in the days when it was paradox --an absurdity--to say that beauty could sooner transform virtue into a procuress for lust than virtue could translate beauty to its own likeness. But now, the world, the present time, proves the paradox true; Hamlet thinks of his mother; of his own honesty represented as a wanton passion for beauty; of Ophelia’s virtue, which cannot be trusted by Polonius to act as guardian of her beauty, but will rather corrupt his and her honesty.”

1934a cam3

cam3

1766-70 Wilson (ed. 1934): “Accepting her words, he twists them back to his own meaning by declaring that Beauty can transform Virtue itself into an opportunity for the gratification of lust. He is thinking not only of Oph.’s behaviour but his mother’s, as is clear from the talk of ‘our old stock’ that follows.”